It was nearly half a century ago that After the Battle first began visiting the battlefields of the Second World War, matching up photographs of the period with their present-day comparisons. Our ‘then and now’ theme caught on with like-minded readers around the world, all interested to know what the places looked like today — as we say ‘keeping history alive’. Searching for the locations where the wartime captions were imprecise, took much time, and there were occasions when a whole day might be spent in pin-pointing where a particular photograph had been taken. No stone was left unturned if a particular comparison was important to illustrate the story, even if it meant a special visit to take one photo. Most of the battlefields have changed over the years so it has been our intention where possible to illustrate many of the places with new color comparisons rather than use those in the original story, many of which were taken in the old black and white days. Since we launched our first edition in August 1973, After the Battle has travelled around the globe and has covered hundreds of battles — over 750 at the last count – and taken thousands of photographs, covering major operations down to individual exploits. Selecting a cross-section of just a few from the stories that we have covered has not been easy, but we hope that you will find some of your favorites within the pages of this volume, covering the Best of After the Battle.  

 

Contents

• 6 Introduction
• 10 SOME EARLY D-DAY MEMORIES
• 12 The Capture of Pegasus Bridge
• 18 Searching for General Eisenhower’s D-Day Command Post
• 22 Battlefields in Normandy
• 28 Salvaging the D-Day Beaches
• 32 D-Day Sequel at Graye-sur-Mer
• 38 INTRODUCING JEAN PAUL PALLUD
• 42 Michael Wittmann’s Last Battle
• 50 SURMOUNTING THE DIFFICULTIES
• 52 The Island of Iwo Jima
• 54 Exploring the Eastern Front
• 58 ONE OF THE WAR’S GREATEST MYSTERIES
• 60 The Last Flight of the B-24 Liberator Lady be Good
• 72 MOST DARING EXPLOITS
• 74 Operation ‘Gunnerside’, February 27/28, 1943
• 80 The Rescue of Italian Dictator Benito Mussolini, September 12, 1943
• 94 OUR GREATEST REVELATIONS
• 96 Discovering the Name of the ‘Man Who Never Was’
• 100 Who Downed Douglas Bader?
• 124 The Suicide of Heinrich Himmler
• 142 FILMING THE SECOND WORLD WAR
• 144 The Making of Theirs is the Glory
• 154 THE WAR CRIMES
• 156 The Massacre of the 2nd Battalion, Royal Norfolk Regiment, at Le Paradis
• 166 Stalag Luft 3 and the Great Escape
• 186 EDITOR’S CHOICE
• 188 The Hammelburg Raid, March 27, 1945
• 226 HOW IT ALL STARTED . . . AND HOW IT FINALLY ENDED
• 228 The Third Reich Martyrs
• 236 The First Shots of the Second World War
• 240 The Surrenders
• 258 Index